28. So maybe communication helpswhatever
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
so maybe communication helps or whatever
“You and Bridget broke up?” I’m shouting the second the hotel room door closes behind me and Forrest. I kick off my shoes with more gusto than is warranted, leaving them strewn on the floor while Forrest neatly lines his up against the wall.
We made it through a tense dessert, then Forrest pulled Jenna aside to apologize for being rude in the kitchen—of course she forgave him, the saint—and we left. Forrest tried to explain in the car, but I told him to shut up until I wasn’t driving a multi-thousand-pound piece of machinery.
Now we’re back, and I’m ready to fucking fight.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s none of my business. It has nothing to do with me. But there’s this voice screaming in my head that I deserved to know. That he should have told me.
A tiny voice tells me I should have known something was up. He hasn’t brought her up once since we got here, and I’ve never seen them talk on the phone. I can pretend I assumed they’d checked in when I was busy, but not a peep about her in over two weeks should have been suspicious.
“It was only casual, but yeah. Things ended before we left,” Forrest says calmly, and his relaxed response only makes me more irritable.
“Why? Was something wrong? Did she do something?” I storm to the opposite end of the hotel room, running out of space before I’m ready to stop, so I turn and start pacing.
I’m walking so forcefully that, even with the streamers being tied back into bunches so we can maneuver around the room, a couple flutter to the floor around me.
It’d be comical if I wasn’t so pissed off.
Tell me it was her idea. Tell me she found somebody else.
“No, nothing was wrong,” he says, walking up to me. I push him aside so I can keep pacing. I can’t stand still right now, but I reach the end of the room too quickly again and turn back to him.
“Then why, Forrest? Why?” I stop in front of him. My pulse is through the roof, my heart thumping so hard I’m surprised I can’t see it leaping from my chest through my clothes.
Say it.
Forrest looks down at me, pain in his eyes.
“Tell me it’s not my fault,” I demand.
“It’s not your fault,” he answers quickly, his eyes fierce.
“I knew I had to pick between her and coming here with you. It wasn’t an ultimatum.
But I knew if I wanted to do this with you, it wasn’t fair to string her along.
It probably wasn’t fair to string her along before that either.
I had to choose,” Forrest says, his eyes a monsoon of emotion.
He’s looking at me like he’s begging me not to make him lay it out.
But he’s here. So, it’s clear what he picked. Who he picked.
I need to hear it. I need to know.
“What does that mean?” I press. I find that dangerous red button and jam my finger into it.
“Camilla Rose, I’ll always pick you,” he says, splitting himself open before me. “I don’t want us to be just like you and Melina. I don’t want to just be your friend.”
Sound rushes in my ears, and I want to hit him. I also want to leap into his arms.
Only I don’t. I can’t. My feet feel rooted to the floor. I’ve been telling myself for months that Forrest didn’t feel this way. That I was doing a good job of hiding how I felt.
But there have been moments. Of course, there have been moments. The touches. Bringing up our relationship. Talking about the sounds I make… I just kept telling myself they weren’t what I thought they were.
“Forrest,” I croak. It feels like I’m going to break. “I don’t deserve—”
“No.” Forrest’s voice is firm, loud. He steps forward, and I step back so we don’t crash together. “I’m done with you acting like you need to walk on eggshells around me. About all this. Enough.”
I stare at him. But I do have to. The breakup, the distance, the pain. It’s all my fault. I don’t get to just walk back from that.
“I’m sorry I was a dick today. Nobody deserved that, but part of me is glad I did something bad enough to finally get you to snap out of whatever you’ve been doing with me.
It made you feel something fucking real with me for the first time since I came back.
You didn’t hold back. I deserved you getting mad at me.
And for the first time in a long time, it felt like you were you again. ”
“I—” I flounder for something to say. He wanted me to be mad at him? To yell at him? That seems like not a good thing.
For an author, I have surprisingly few words at my disposal right now. I’ve been trying to make amends, pay penance for what I did. To be good.
“Stop punishing yourself. Stop making yourself smaller. I know you, and this isn’t you.
You’ve only been giving me the shiny, nice, good parts of you, but I want all of you.
” Forrest’s voice raises as he looks down on me, looking like frustration is fighting to pour out of him.
But he reels it back in, finding control from who knows where.
“Fucking hell, Cam. You never asked. You decided I hate you, but you never fucking asked.”
“You should hate me,” I say, finding my voice, small as it sounds. “I’m so damn lucky you’re willing to be around me at all. After what I did to you? How I did it?”
He chuckles, but there’s no joy in it. He puts his hands on his hips and looks up, like he’s hoping god will help him. All we’ve got are streamers.
“Well, I’ll admit it wasn’t my favorite, but it’s been seven years. And you’re… You’re you,” he says, dragging his eyes back down to mine, pinning me with that stare.
“What does that mean,” I whisper. I feel my fingers start to shake. I feel myself start to hope, and hope is a dangerous thing.
Forrest groans, and it sounds like a caged animal.
“It means you mean too much to me. It means I forgave you a long time ago. It means I don’t hate you. I never did. I can’t. Because for me, it’s you,” he confesses, his chest rising and falling like he just ran a marathon.
“I—you—what?” I swear I can feel my neurons firing on overdrive since everything in my body seems to be going haywire, but nothing is working properly. “How can you forgive me when I never even explained?”
“I figured it out,” Forrest says, and the blood drains from my head. He’s always been clever. “My mom obviously told me you came by, and she told me how you left. You found it, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“You said for years that you wanted to leave Hingley. That you wanted to travel and see things and do things. And I never listened. I didn’t want to leave, and I figured you’d come around.
Then with my internship, and talking about buying a place, the job I’d have so close to home.
When I looked back on it after you left, it wasn’t so shocking you took off after all that.
I caged you in. We were nineteen for fuck’s sake. ” Forrest shrugs like it was a given.
Like I wasn’t insane for running away from it all, from him. Like it wasn’t all my fault.
“But I should have tried harder. I should have talked to you or explained. And I should have told you about—”
“You did try to tell me. All year. I know I wasn’t listening.
I just wish I didn’t have to lose you to figure my shit out.
And yeah, maybe breaking up with me in a note and then blocking me wasn’t the best, but I forgive you.
And I hope you’ll forgive me for being so damn pigheaded before that.
” He reaches for me then, twisting his fingers with mine.
I look down, feeling that point of contact like an anchor.
“Cam.” Forrest’s voice is soft again, but I can’t tear my eyes from our hands. “It was you when I was nineteen. Fuck, it was you when I was ten years old and too naive to know it. It’s you now, and I’ve got a good feeling it’ll be you for my whole damn life.”
At that, I look back at him. And say the only thought left in my brain.
“Forrest, I love you.”
“I know,” he says, and we both crack a smile. Before he fully becomes Han Solo, he adds, “I love you too.”
“But what if something goes wrong again. I can’t lose you like before. I won’t survive it,” I say. He means so damn much to me.
“That’s one thing I’m not worried about. I could never lose you either.” When Forrest smiles, every part of me wants to melt into the safety of his confidence.
“Then why…” I trail off. I want to know why we’ve been dancing around each other for the last year. I mean, I know why I haven’t done anything. But if he didn’t hate me, if I’ve been it…
“You did leave me and run across almost the entire country. And then when you were back, when we were back, I didn’t know what you wanted.
I didn’t know if I could be enough for you and everything you want.
Even now. At the lake? I thought we were there, in the same place finally.
But I need to make sure you want this too, and you aren’t just going to go along with whatever I wanted because you feel guilty.
I was trying to be subtle, but you really don’t do subtle.
” His thumb rubs over my knuckles. Back and forth.
He moves closer. “So, I really need you to forgive yourself. To tell me you’re capable of telling me to go fuck myself.
To tell me what you want, because I will give you everything. ”